Ouija Boards

[Evangeline]

Since I am a devote Supernatural fan, I shall leave the messing with ghosts to other people and just play it safe. I have a certain someone to pull out of Hell again after all.

[Shienvien]

...The only way could ever cause any harm with an Ouija board is by hitting someone over the head with one. Or alternatively by lying about it and making people pointlessly fear it as if it were a thing of power rather than a parlour trick board game.

 

Generally, if you don't tell the "sensitive people" they'd never know a thing, even when literally hundreds of people were killed in the basement of the very building you were in less than century ago. (I've worked in a building in which KGB, NKVD and all those other "lovely" organizations used, something I found out quite some ways in. Lo and behold, some of my colleagues back then were self-proclaimed sensitive people, too, and had not noticed a thing, either.) In return, you can make them believe whatever you want just by acting off yourself...

[Kestra15]

On a note about 'sensitive' people, I do wonder how those people cope with visiting hospitals, or former hospitals.

[Kyrieath]

On a note about 'sensitive' people, I do wonder how those people cope with visiting hospitals, or former hospitals.

From what I've seen, most who are genuinely sensitive just plain won't go into such places if they can help it.

 

I also have a certain inclination to disbelieve anyone who is openly touting being 'sensitive' is actually so. I may believe in the existence of such, but mysticism of any kind has always attracted frauds and charlatans of all stripes, and they're usually the loudest.

[LupaWulf]

On a note about 'sensitive' people, I do wonder how those people cope with visiting hospitals, or former hospitals.

I'd imagine some get physical reactions as someone would get from severe stress.

Stomach aches, headaches... Different things the longer they spend there.

 

I can tell you when I had to stay in the hospital for nearly a week I started to have some majorly messed up dreams when they stopped the heavy duty painkillers. Nothing involving me, nothing like a story line, but certain oddness, negative emotions, and creepy feelings I still remember waking from.

Totally went away when I was at home on the same prescriptions.

 

 

I'm not even particularly sensitive. Don't do readings or anything, just sometimes stuff is there. I've seen shadow people when visiting friends or family who were in hospice. Had a something wake me up when sleeping at an mid 1800s vintage house, it snored. I asked it to stop keeping me up. It stopped.

Some things are just there.

 

 

 

Ouija boards, well, nothing remarkable about interaction for me.

[Dragonhatchling]

On a note about 'sensitive' people, I do wonder how those people cope with visiting hospitals, or former hospitals.

I am one of those people. I absolutely hate going into anything of the sort... unless I have to, which then, I do my best to be calm and my normal self in the area. If I don't absolutely have to go inside, I will wait near the area if I have no other choice... but if my choices are given, I'm not going within three blocks of such places out of preference.

 

As for the ouija boards... I've been around them, my family owns one, a few friends tried it as a game once. The outcomes were different each time i've been around one that was used, though I never partook in the actual using of it and merely was there to be there and observe anything that might happen. So far, i have yet to see anything truly harmful happen from such boards, though what has happened has been far more odd than the normal occurrences I am used to.

[Shienvien]

I can tell you when I had to stay in the hospital for nearly a week I started to have some majorly messed up dreams when they stopped the heavy duty painkillers. Nothing involving me, nothing like a story line, but certain oddness, negative emotions, and creepy feelings I still remember waking from.

You are surprised stopping taking powerful and likely psychoactive (which painkillers tend to be, the more potent even more so) chemicals had an odd effect on you? Might have gone through straight drug-recession, there.

 

Also illnesses and such often affect dreams, the same as things which you yourself think and experience. Your brain is reorganizing thoughts and processing input and storing info away during sleep, pretty much. It also produces LSD-alike. (Well, LSD is alike the chemical that brain produces to make dreams, anyway.) Heck, I have weird dreams on travels and more stressful events, too, but I acknowledge that those are from stress and/or breaks of routine.

 

Note that sensitive people typically do not sense anything if they don't know. And if they do sense something correctly, it is generally explainable by chance - you'd be hard-pressed to find any large apartment complex more than a dozen years old in which no one has died. Or a large crossroads mid-city on which a person hasn't died a bloody death by being run over. And that inconspicuous building you work in just might be a former KGB execution establishment where hundreds were tortured violently murdered.

 

Honestly, and you're capable of feeling whatever if you only convince your brain you're feeling it. Makes a good meditation exercise. If you rile yourself up, don't be surprised if you feel something as a result.

[Syiren]

I've never messed with one, but I've heard some pretty crazy stories about them. It's more than enough to make me stay away.

 

My mom used one once with her sisters and she said it freaked her out and she was unable to sleep peacefully for about a month afterwards.

 

I've had some haunting experiences happen to me in the past and I'm definitely going to vouch for the fact that they probably do work and are not to be taken lightly.

[ShinyTomato]

On a note about 'sensitive' people, I do wonder how those people cope with visiting hospitals, or former hospitals.

I handle it very badly. And I've been in a lot of them. It's not fun, in any way, shape or form. I've had to be sedated before, I've had to have my nose packed from nosebleeds, etc.

[Namine]

One of my friends invited me over but I was to scared to try it so I made the "can't I'm sick" excuse.

[Shienvien]

It is not the hospital (or Ouija board, or whatever) doing it to you. It is you yourself doing it to you.

[ShinyTomato]

It is not the hospital (or Ouija board, or whatever) doing it to you. It is you yourself doing it to you.

As far as hospitals go, that argument only works if you know you're in a hospital, which has not always been the case for me, and yet, I have the same reactions before being aware I'm in a hospital.

[Shienvien]

As far as hospitals go, that argument only works if you know you're in a hospital, which has not always been the case for me, and yet, I have the same reactions before being aware I'm in a hospital.

Inversely, how can you be certain that there haven't been times where you've been in a structure like that and not felt anything? Do you know how many times you've walked over a spot on the street where a pedestrian has bled to death? Unknowingly visited a house in which someone died a painful death recently? These places are everywhere. I tell you, the people working alongside me in a building in which hundreds had been violently murdered and tormented had made similar claims to you - and I won't believe there is a "bad aura" in a hospital if they never noticed anything in that house. (Nor did I, for the matter. At worst you might have gotten a mild headache if you went and sat in the server room, but that's normal when you're in an oddly-ventilated metal box filled with electromagnetic fields and loud, incessant multitone hum; all server rooms I've been to have been somewhat unhealthy, old and brand new alike) Or when I see them happily chattering away when three meters to the side someone's brains were splattered over the street last week (literally).

 

There can also be other things your brain/body picks up, but you may not consciously acknowledge. The smell of chlorine or some such cleaning agent, for instance. (Or whatever they use, sometimes probably mixed with the slight smell of various body-excretions; I swear the most definitive thing about any hospital I've been to is the smell, even if the hospital hasn't been working for a few years.) Certain architectural elements, even - the corridors, the easily cleanable surfaces. I don't particularly like hospitals either, but that's mainly my distaste for white surfaces and the smell. (I am not fond of the "futuristic" all-white design either. Some churches feel extremely unfriendly and oppressive for the same reason. Black is a much 'friendlier' colour than white, if you ask me...)

 

Most of what your brain does is subconscious. Even just looking at a picture of a healthy person onto which someone has hastily photoshopped a bunch of red spots will incur a notice reaction from your immunous system. (They tested and measured that.) The reaction was on average slightly stronger with actual illness being depicted, but even sloppy imitation that mildly brought to mind a disease suffices to make human bodies react as if they had contacted the actual bacteria.

 

And I personally consider promoting the idea of "bad places" (excluding actual bad places, say sinking foundation or radon leaks) and "ghosts" and "bad energy" harmful to the community as a whole. It is fearmongering, plain and simple - and while there are no ghosts to harm people, the stress people themselves will cause themselves is definitely unhealthy and definitely harmful. I don't believe in supernatural, but I do believe in people being capable of completely wrecking their mental and physical health by self-inducing stress.

 

Like it was said - blindfold a person and flip the board around (or 90-degree it in either direction) without the person realizing it, and "ghosts" lose the ability to speak.

[Syiren]

I don't believe in supernatural, but I do believe in people being capable of completely wrecking their mental and physical health by self-inducing stress.

And with all due respect, that is your opinion which is perfectly fine. However just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it isn't real.

 

I respect that you're a very intelligent person and you're looking at life with a scientific mind and you also are able to determine what can cause a person to feel certain things. However there are times when science just doesn't add up.

 

I was like that when I was 18 and working at a haunted house for Halloween with my brother. We actually built it brand new with the people we were working with and went into a wooded area. There was one house near the road, but everything else was wilderness except for the highway that was about a mile up the road.

 

We made paths and built each room and the main section was in an old dried up creek bed. What one of the guys discovered just past the Chainsaw Massacre room was an old Native American burial ground. It was only about two or three head stones, but there were also bones scattered around it from smaller animals.

 

As we finished building it and getting it ready to open, several of the workers including myself had things happen that we couldn't explain. Now, I cannot vouch for the others, but I was very skeptical and didn't believe in Ghosts or auras or anything else. But When I was walking up the path one night to use the restroom (and was alone) I heard footsteps thundering up the path right behind me. I turned so quickly that I would have seen whoever it was even if they had darted to the side. No one was there. I immediately looked at the thick bushes to either side and not a single twig or branch was moving. There was no way if it were someone else or an animal that it would have made that heavy of footsteps and not disturbed something.

 

There was another incident with a glowing blue light that was coming up the path. i thought it was from a glow stick of a group and waited in hiding to scare them when they came close. I waited....and waited...still nothing. I started my routine just in case and then when no one was there I headed over to where the other Zombie was and asked her if that group with the glow stick had turned back. She said "what group? No one's been by for the last forty minutes." I knew that there was no way she could not have seen the light if it was a group as it passed right by where she was stationed.

 

I tried to disprove those two times, but there was no way to explain it. It still boggles me to this day and I'm left with only one answer. There was something spiritual going on there.

 

Sometimes there are things in this world that cannot be explained.

[Shienvien]

I tried to disprove those two times, but there was no way to explain it. It still boggles me to this day and I'm left with only one answer.

I am not disproving those things because I disagree with people believing them - I disprove those things because I have seen those beliefs to be tangibly and physically harmful. Sometimes people "worry themselves sick". At other times, they may be suffering from schizophrenia or something similar, and not get it checked out.

Similarly, I am on the standpoint that small children should not be introduced to religion. If you are adult, believe whatever you want, but leave children alone. (But that's another can of worms.)

 

As for those instances - there are too many factors I don't know to even begin guessing. One thing you must always remember, though: your perception and your brain are not infallible. Your senses lie. Your brain fills in the gaps and often outright fabricates things. Take a white sheet of paper. A normal A4 works just fine. Turn on the lights so that no shadow falls onto it. Now stare at the sheet of paper for half an hour and do not think of anything that would force your focus away and make you envision something. If you don't see the paper trying to "flow" away, or weird splotches of colour appearing on it, or something other weird and hallucinogenic and otherworldly, then you are not the far majority of humans.

 

Edit: Also, the silent room. Odd things happen when you completely soundproof a room and put a human with working hearing in it. They won't last an hour before hightailing out.

 

In houses, sometimes the floors are unfixed. A person I know once lived in a house wherein someone occasionally "walked" from one end of corridor to another. What really happened? When you entered the corridor and walked though it, the slightly curved floorboards got pressed to the ground and remained under strain. After a while, that strain began to relieve, a board after board. Blam! Perfect walking sounds.

 

Another thing I've personally heard - what happens when you let near-boiling water run through cold pipes (mother forgot to turn a valve and almost blew the heating system up). That sounded horrible, and not at all like you'd expect pipes to sound like. Like someone extremely violently rattling bars or somehow beating at something or... I can't even really explain it. It didn't sound natural.

 

And then there was this little incident with clicking bugs (waking me up during night, damnit), and I found out that a friends dog is terrified of the high-pitched humming some electrical transformers make (and thusly didn't want to enter a room; pulling a wire solved the issue).

 

As for your incidents more specifically - there are too many things for me to even begin to guess. How closely did you expect the ground beneath your feet? What were the air conditions like? You are saying it was during night, and during night the air conditions change - I've personally noticed that in some occasions, it makes sound to carry extremely well. Those footsteps could have been several hundred meters off. I've heard trains right behind my parents' house when there are miles to the railroad (you can't hear the trains during the day at all, if you have very good hearing you might pick up a whistle ... maybe). When I was in university, I also, for a brief time lived in a campus house. On the fifth floor. And I heard every single word spoken on the street as if the people were right behind the window. Couple of times I actually opened the window to look out and see whether the next door neighbour had a window open, too, and was the one doing the talking, but no, it was always people down on the street...

To be fair, there are probably plenty of times I've heard footsteps and stopped to it, and I know I've walked circles around the tent aplenty because something was stalking around it, but never really thought about it long enough to remember them specifically. Would you have remembered it if it weren't for the burial place nearby, or would you have dismissed it as your senses playing tricks on you and later forgotten about it?

 

The light - similarly many options. You never went to look, so you might never know. Hallucination, actual thing, who knows. (The first association I made was rather disturbing - namely, the presence of radioactivity claimedly sometimes causes a type of blue glow right inside the eye.) And well, you see glowing spots when you look at something too bright, too... Next time, just go and look. Wouldn't take your companions by the word, either. They might have still arranged your little ghost story.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Shienvien

[Pestilence420]

Dude this thread isn't for whether or not you believe in ghost (which I DO) if you have no stories about ouija boards or ghosts don't post and go make another thread...

[Shienvien]

Each topic has two sides, mind you. Ouija boards themselves were first thought up and made for the very purpose to be board games for simple entertainment, and were never supposed to become marketed as tools for "communicating with the dead". I personally find the human brain and its workings even more fascinating than ghosts (thus my rather extensive library of associated tricks, articles and research papers).

[Pestilence420]

Each topic has two sides, mind you. Ouija boards themselves were first thought up and made for the very purpose to be board games for simple entertainment, and were never supposed to become marketed as tools for "communicating with the dead". I personally find the human brain and its workings even more fascinating than ghosts (thus my rather extensive library of associated tricks, articles and research papers).

Great you and a whole bunch of other people already said that! Now go make a thread about the brain and it's working I don't care too know and if I did I would have made a thread about that

[Shienvien]

Why the hostility? This particular bit pertains directly to what Ouija boards are and what they were created for back in the 80's (I believe? was the end of the last century). Discussing the paranormal and its existence might be a bit derailing from the specific topic (that might be more befitting for a more general supernatural topic; I think there was one here at one point of time - may try to dig it up afterwards in case it has not been deleted yet, right now I'm a bit too tired), but the theory behind Ouija boards' creation and subconscious response/anticipation and whether or not it is that or ghosts "speaking" and which is more likely? Sure.

 

 

[Ramica]

I've used Ouija boards. Heard some scary stories or problems involving some of them. Most of the time yeah it is just a game and don't put much stock in it. But there are times, that you just have to wonder.

 

Now with Ouija boards one person alone should not play with it - always more then one. But my dad used to be able to get it to work on his own. There was one time a friend of my mom's was on the phone talking to her and she said she had lost a ring, well my dad had the Ouija board out and mom said ask it where so-n-so ring is. My dad did ask it and the ouija board spelled out exactly where the ring was. Mom's went and checked where the Ouija board said and found it. So, did dad know where the ring was, no he might have guessed but to get it right? odds are slim.

 

Years later in my teens I was playing with the board with a friend and some one was talking to us. I didn't like the answers the board was giving us to questions and felt something was off, not quite right. I insisted on saying goodbye at first what ever was there did not want to say goodbye but it finally did. I played with the board and this friend before and had never had an experience like that. I knew I wasn't moving it and my friend wasn't a very good speller so I could not see her giving the answers the board was giving at that time.

 

It is true that sometimes you get some entity or something that isn't nice and may mean harm that seems to come through boards, I have heard of it happening more then once. I think that is what I came across that day with my friend though, have no proof of it.

[Pestilence420]

Because if it keeps going down the road it is now it's just going to be turned into a debate and I don't want that..

 

Sorry I'm not trying to be rude but come on you don't need to post after every person and say how it isn't a ghost and just your brain playing tricks...

[MedievalMystic]

Ghosts? Show me the video and let me hear the audio. Who knew cardboard and plastic could have such magical powers?

Edited January 2, 2015 by MedievalMystic

[Pestilence420]

Who knew people could be such jerks?

 

I'm just gonna have this closed or something because some of you are just annoying

[Shienvien]

One thing which leaves me especially sceptical is the fact that the board itself isn't "doing" anything - it is always the human moving the planchette (spelling?). Most spooky stories also involve either someone else moving the thing (high chance of bluffing - how can you be *certain* that your father hadn't noticed a ring lying about somewhere and just decided to impress you all? [[People take their rings off at others' houses?]] During any "live demonstrations" - children perhaps even more so, but adults many alike - tend to be especially notorious for doing such things, and perhaps also specifically trying to spook others) or the "ghost" could have been thought up on the spot (and mind - someone having died in the house is something that is true for many if not most houses in some regions) - you start spelling out what you expect, essentially.

 

Are there people here who themselves have actually tried blindfolding people and flipping the able 90, 180, 270 degrees without the person realizing (and having memorized the altered board placements - if I can type on keyboard regardless of how it is positioned in relation to me as long as the keys themselves are put....)? Or who insist that something odd happened while they themselves were "in control" and they were getting proper full answers they weren't anticipating/expecting/thinking up as they went and then automatically spelling out? Furthermore answers that were accurate significantly beyond "I died here".

[Obscure_Trash]

Please use the report function as necessary.

 

Please, let's not forget a very important board rule: https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?act=boardrules

 

Respect Others

It isn't possible to get far in the world if you refuse to respect others. Treat others kindly, don't insult them, and others will do the same in return. If you refuse to treat others well, then you will get not only a warning, but a bad reputation, which opens the door for more negativity.

 

This means no name calling but it also means to respect other's situations and beliefs. Not all of us here believe in ghosts, but that doesn't mean we can't respect when people do believe in ghosts and etc. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree. Not everyone has the same experiences. Wouldn't life be terribly dull if we did?

 

Edit: Also, as long as the discussion remains on topic and is appropriate, the discussion is allowed to continue and should not be controlled by a single party. Discussion is discussion is discussion!

Edited January 2, 2015 by Shiny Hazard Sign